Optical displays, such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are becoming increasingly commonplace, finding use, for example, in mobile telephones, hand-held computer devices ranging from personal digital assistants (PDAS) to electronic games, to larger devices such as laptop computers, and LCD monitors and television screens. The incorporation of light management films into optical display devices results in improved display perfonmance. Different types of films, including prismatically structured films, reflective polarizers and diffuser films, are useful for improving display parameters such as output luminance, illumination uniformity, viewing angle, and overall system efficiency. Such improved operating characteristics make the device easier to use, and the concomitant reduction in battery requirements may allow the size of the battery to be reduced, or for the time between battery chargings to be increased. Even in displays that do not use batteries, light management films are often useful for reducing the complexity of the display, and can lead to breakthrough performance in terms of luminance, uniformity, power efficiency, heat management, and other characteristics.
The light management films are typically stacked, one by one, into the display frame between a backlight assembly and the flat panel display. The stack of films can be optimized to obtain a particular desired optical performance. From a manufacturing perspective, however, several issues can arise from the handling and assembly of several discrete film pieces. These problems include, inter alia, the excess time required to remove protective liners from individual optical films, along with the increased chance of damaging a film when removing the liner. In addition, the insertion of individual sheets into the display frame to build the stack of films is time consuming and provides further opportunity for the film to be damaged. All of these problems can contribute to diminished overall throughput or to reduced yield, which leads to higher system cost.